IX.

TRODDEN SNOW

“UNDINE,” said the Piece-of-perfection the next day, as he stood in the
doorway putting on his greatcoat, preparatory to taking his departure; “did that
little old cousin of yours never try to make love to you?”

“No,” said Undine.

She hated him so, it would have given her such infinite satisfaction to have
injured him; yet at the same time it seemed the height of meanness to speak
against him—the man who had befriended her. The untruth seemed, in the darkness
and confusion of the moment, higher than the truth, and it passed from her lips
to bring forth the poisoned fruit which the lie bears, be it spoken for God's
glory or the salvation of a soul.

She would have retracted it almost in the same breath, but he answered quickly,
“I am glad to hear it; I have a greater respect for my old pedagogue than for
almost any man I know, but I had an idea from the way he sometimes spoke of you
that he cared rather more for you than a second cousin's husband generally does.
I am glad it was fancy.
page: 145 I will come again this
evening and take you for a walk.” And he was gone.

He was gone, and the untrue word was gone also. She stood in the hall and buried
her face in both hands, utterly humiliated. She had told a lie, and told it to
him. In other days her sorrow would have been that anything
could have tempted her so to demean herself. Now it was all swallowed up in
this—it was to him.

She ran out through the little garden with nothing on her head and the sleet and
snow falling thick upon her. He was just entering the wood. She paused when she
had almost reached him at the thought of the cold light that would fall on her
when she presented herself before him in such plight—paused, then turned slowly
back to the house.

Evil times had fallen on her, and she asked no more, “Is it right?” but only,
“Will he think it right?”

“This afternoon I will tell him,” she said, as she walked, damp and chilly, up
the garden path. “I wish he had never asked me.”

It seemed so evil to speak against the man she hated, worse to leave things as
they were; yet neither on that afternoon nor on any of the days that followed
could she look up into the cold half-closed eyes and say, “I told you a
lie.”

The words were always on her tongue, always in
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her heart; but the white face with its wonderful crushing influence over her
kept them unspoken.

“I will tell him tomorrow, some day when he loves me better, when he understands
me, when I am his little wife,” she would say to herself, whenever he had just
left her. But a silent though not less abiding conviction was with her that the
day never would come when he would know her better. Her one hour of light had
passed that night in the little fire-lit parlour; henceforth, strive as she
might to annihilate herself and be only what the man might choose, he would
never come near her, they would never meet.

“I am afraid I made a great fool of myself,” soliloquised the
Piece-of-perfection, as he walked alone one sharp frosty evening. “No other
woman ever made me lose my head, but I do believe the little creature bewitched
me that night with her sentimental talk. She loves me, I can do anything with
her, I shall make something of her in time; but I was a great fool.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked, coming suddenly upon the subject of his
thoughts as she stood below her old tree, wrapped in her little red cloak, with
Prince at her side.

The dog rubbed his head against his master's foot; the human dog crept nearer
him.

“You know I do not like your wandering about alone,” he said, in the cold,
unlover-like tone in
page: 147 which he had always
spoken to her except on that first evening.

“I would not have come if I had thought you would not like me to,” she said,
glancing up into his face.

“I want you to go to church tomorrow,” was his next and rather abrupt remark.
“Your cousin is better; you will be able to go, will you not? You will have to
go some day; I would rather you began now.

“Yes, I can go,” she answered after a moment's pause.

“'Tis a matter of supreme indifference to me,” continued the Piece-of-perfection,
“what you choose to believe; but you must do nothing to make yourself peculiar.
There is nothing so hateful in a woman as eccentricity of any description.”

Undine had now heard this remark so often that she had no new reply to make to
it, and walked on in silence.

“Were you very busy this morning, Undine?”

“No, not at all,” she said. “Why do you ask me?”

“Because your glove is torn, and I was thinking you might have had some very
important matters to attend to which prevented your mending it; but you have a
weakness for torn gloves, I fancy.”

“You will never see me with one again,” she said, pulling it off quickly.

page: 148

“I hope not,” he answered, quietly. “There are few things which I admire less
than a slovenly woman. If a woman cares to retain the affection of those about
her, she will always be particular as to her dress.”

“So that others might love her dress, not herself,” said Undine.

“I will care for my wife just as long as she gives me reason to be proud of her,”
he replied, coolly.

“Just as you do for your horses and your dog?”

“Yes; I believe I care for that dog as well as for most things; but if he became
disobedient or vicious, I should care nothing more about him.”

He spoke gravely; Undine knew he meant what he said; and the life that lay before
her seemed to look almost as cheerless and icy as the white frosty world that
lay stretched out before her eyes. But, she resolved, I will be all he wishes
me; he shall be proud of me, prouder than of all his dogs and horses, she
thought, as she clenched and loosened the fingers of her little gloveless
hand.

“What causes you always to move your hand in that extraordinary manner whenever
you are angry? It is not very pretty, I can assure you.”

“I am not angry; I was only thinking.”

“What?”

“That I will try and be everything you wish. Do you believe me?”

“If I did not believe that you would try and
page: 149
that you would also succeed, I would not care to make you my wife,” he replied.
“You are a clever little woman and can do anything you wish.”

And Undine felt more exultant at these equivocal words of praise than Lady Edith
at his most honeyed compliments.

For some time after that they walked on in silence, only the sound of their
footsteps on the hard frozen ground breaking the stillness.

At last she said, very suddenly and very hurriedly: “You know that if ever, at
any moment, at any time, you change and would rather not marry me, if it were
the very day before our wedding—you must feel quite free—you must tell me so—it
will be all right.”

“Are you changing your mind already?” he asked, glancing down at her.

“No, I shall never change,” she answered.

“Nor am I in the habit of retracing my steps, either; but it is certainly better,
if one does repent, to do so before it is too late.”

They said no more till they got to the gate of the garden.

“Are you not going to come in and see my cousin today? She is up,” said Undine,
and while he sat in Mrs. Barnacles' little sitting-room she ran upstairs.

There was an ominous pulling about the corners of her mouth but she knew if she
gave way to it her
page: 150 eyes would be red and
swollen in two minutes; so she tore off her hat and cloak and, changing her
dress, spent at least five minutes in arranging a black-and-red bow in her hair
and a few more on her dress. It took her a long time before she was satisfied
with her appearance; then she went downstairs.

He was satisfied with it, too, though she could not tell it from his face. Poor
little fool! How she did love him! And he felt a kind of pity for her.

It was growing dark and the red lamp in the hall was already lighted when he rose
to go. He had wished her good-night, and she was turning to go upstairs when he
called her back softly. He uttered her name twice and drew her tenderly to him
when she came to his side.

“Be sure you practise this evening; you are my own little darling,” he said, and
pressed a long kiss on her lips. “Don't sit up too late, and look as pretty and
as sweet when I come tomorrow as you do now. Good-night, my little girl.” And
again the firm stern lips with their soft golden moustaches were pressed against
hers as he folded her close to him.

It was late the next morning when Undine rose; for it is very pleasant, when one
has delicious visions, to be dreaming and dozing in bed on a winter's morning.
And her visions were sweet, sweet—though, God knows, they were childish and
small enough. She would do her hair so; she would dress
page: 151 herself so; she would go to church; she would do
this; she would do that. He would kiss her, he would kiss her, as he kissed her
last night.

She was sitting on her bed side, as she had been sitting for the last five
minutes, with one stocking half on and the other in her hand, when the maid
knocked at the door and passed her in a letter.

The hand was his, and it was the first she had ever got from him: she tore it
open quickly. It ran:

MY DEAR LITTLE GIRL! I have just heard that my immediate
presence in London is indispensable. 'Tis a matter of
business and I can't delay. I have a note from Mr. Barnacles
in which he tells me that he has been ill, but returns to
Greenwood on Monday. As you intend leaving for your
grandmother's as soon as he does so, I suppose I shall not
find you here when I return. I shall try to run down and see
my little girl as soon as I am able.

Yours most affectionately, A.
BLAIR.

She threw herself down among the pillows, and after half an hour rose slowly to
begin her packing. When it was done she went to Mrs. Barnacles' room, to tell
her that she was leaving that evening.

“It's just another of her freaks,” said that lady to Miss Mell, who came to spend
the afternoon with her. “No one could have been more kindly treated than she had
been here; quite spoiled in fact. There is no telling what she will take into
her head next. I wish her grandmother joy of her, I'm sure.”

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“Don't you think Harry Blair's going away so suddenly, without making her an
offer, may have something to do with it?” said Miss Mell, looking enormously
sharp and green about the eyes.

“I am sure from what I have seen that she could have had him at any time she
chose, but—you will not mention it to anyone, I know—his father has quarrelled
with him and will have nothing more to do with him.”

“Ah, I understand now,” said Miss Mell; “that will have put my lady out just a
little in her pretty little game. A poor penniless boy is not much of a catch.
It serves her right. I always thought it shameful, the way she used to walk
about everywhere with him quite alone. I wonder she had not more regard for her
character than to act as she did. I would die sooner than be on
such intimate terms with a man to whom I was not engaged; and even then I think
a modest reticence so becoming in a woman.” And Miss Mell drew
herself up stiffly in her chair and drew down the corners of her mouth.

“Well, anyhow,” said Mrs. Barnacles, sipping her tea, “I do wish her grandmother
joy of her. There is something one can't help liking about the girl, but she is
so peculiar and eccentric I shall be glad to have her off my hands.”

“Don't you think she is trying it on in another direction?” inquired Miss Mell,
with that wrinkling
page: 153 about the mouth which was
all she had to show for a smile.

“I don't think she tries it on in any direction; that is just what I complain
of,” replied Mrs. Barnacles. “From what I know, I am sure she could have had old
Blair if she had chosen. He is much older than she is, but a penniless girl
can't be too fastidious, and he is terribly rich.”

“As to her not trying it on, I don't know about that,” said Miss Mell; “I don't
think she would have said no, if he had given her a chance of saying yes, but
perhaps she has higher game in her eye. What do you think some one comes here
once and sometimes twice a day for?”

“Oh, he is polite to all women; his attentions mean nothing. He will look higher
when he chooses a wife,” said Mrs. Barnacles. Miss Mell smiled a far-seeing
smile and broke her cake.

While they sat talking of her in the little parlour, Undine was standing for the
last time under her old tree in the wood. It was leafless and bare now, and
great white icicles hung from its branches. The little stream was silent and
noiseless.

Next summer the green leaves would break forth on it and the little brook would
run laughing past, whispering to the long grasses and white forest flowers, and
among its knotted swollen roots the bright-backed beetles and busy ants would
run; but she would rest no more among them. “Good-bye
page: 154 old tree,” she said, breaking off a bit of its dry
frosty bark. “Good-bye, my friend, my dear old friend. I have had such beautiful
dreams beneath you; I have had such happy thoughts. They will never come to me
any more; my higher life is dead, quite dead; I love only him and I must serve
him now. Good-bye.”